Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas.

Happy Hanukkah.

Merry or Happy Kwaanza.

Whatever you and yours celebrate, I hope you had a merry and happy one.

Charlie's birthday is six days before Christmas. Whenever people hear this, they all make a sad puppy face, and say what a shame it's so close to Christmas, and we should consider celebrating it in June so he doesn't get shafted.

Shafted? This kid is the luckiest kid alive.

Not only does he get birthday presents AND Christmas presents, but he gets Hanukkah presents, too.

The perfect trifecta.

Here he is playing with his xylophone his Nonnie got him:



People get creeped out when they hear that we don't celebrate Christmas in our house. So I don't tell many people. But I'm telling you today that we don't. We also don't celebrate Hanukkah here.

That doesn't mean we don't celebrate at all.

Here's the deal - I was raised Catholic. Jase was raised Jewish. But we're both not religious people. We kind of balk at the whole organized religion thing. At the risk of inviting years of therapy on our kid, we have decided to expose Charlie to both Christmas and Hanukkah. In the meantime, he'll follow our own "religion".

We call it Ritchieism. Be good to other people. Respect the environment. Treat every day like a gift.

He's a little young to understand all of it, but he'll soon get to the age where he wonders why there's no Christmas tree or menorrah and ask for Santa or Hanukkah Harry to visit his home.

So here's how were handling it. Every year, we are going to celebrate Christmas as his Nonnie's house in Michigan. And every year we are going to celebrate Hanukkah at his Bubbe and Zada's in San Diego.

Our house? Birthday central, baby.

This means no less than three celebrations in the month of December. I don't know what he will think once he's in school and he compares his holidays to those of his classmates. Hopefully all his friends will look upon him in envy, rather than confusion. It's better to be envied than misunderstood. But in any case, we hope he gets that he is loved by all of us, no matter what religion, if any, he chooses to follow.

We spent Christmas Eve at the beach, because we could.



We also spent the week taking care of Tankini the pug while our neighbors went out of town.



Check out all the other pics. They are quite good. And here's another video of him playing with this stacking toy his Aunt Anne got for him - he's a kid obsessed. And we hope you all had a happy and merry holiday!!

Two Years of Charlie

Two years ago today, Charlie Martel Ritchie was born.

He was this tiny little thing, with a little bird mouth and tightly shut eyes to shield the bright lights of life. I held him in my arms, not moments but hours after his birth. It was an emergency c-section, and I was put under anesthesia so I don't remember any of it. But once I held him and we looked at each other for the first time, I knew he was mine, and he knew I was his.

Now, just 24 months later, he's grown into this person, with likes and dislikes, with hair - lots of it, with an intellect that continuously amazes us every single day. He loves numbers and music and will color for hours. He reads his books, either by himself or with me, and knows when to turn the pages or when I've missed a line. He jumps and runs and spins and hops. He laughs all day long. He's happy. He knows he is loved.

Happy Birthday, Charlie. Thanks for joining our family. You've made us happier than we ever imagined we could be.

The Visit of All Visits

On the Friday before Thanksgiving, we went to the airport and saw the following people standing on the curb:

my mom ("Mom" or "Nonnie")
my sister ("Anne")
my brother-in-law ("Mike")
my nephews ("Jack & Joey")
my diva princess niece ("Jenna")

So we decided to pick them up and bring them back to our house. It was the least we could do.

This vacation was huge for the kids. A) it was the first time they were on a plane. B) it was their first time to California. C) it was the first time visiting us in the 10 years we've lived outside of Michigan. We were determined to make it the best vacation EVER. And I don't want to toot our own horn, but beep, beep, if you know what I mean.

We officially started the vacation on Saturday morning by bringing the kids to McDonalds for breakfast. It's the kid mecca of breakfast places. Notice Charlie's slightly hesitant look on his face. He's not used to being around kids, since we keep him locked up in our dungeon.



(Actually, Charlie loved hanging with his cousins. No meltdowns at all.)

So then we went to SeaWorld. Joey is quite the expert on sharks. So I knew he would love the walk-through, see-through tunnel that was surrounded by sharks. He did:








The next day we went to the beach. Why? Because it was November 20th and 76 degrees out. Why? Because we could.









That evening we bathed Charlie and Jenna, and Jenna proclaimed, "Charlie's a boy. He has a penis!"




Here's a pic from Scripps Aquairum. Don't worry - it's not a real shark.



The men visited the USS Midway while the ladies and toddlers visited the mall.



Afterwards, they toured Petco Stadium, where the Padres play.



We then went and got pictures taken. They turned out awesome.








And then, the highlight of the trip: LegoLand!

Charlie hung out in the Duplo section:







The big kids played on the giant fire trucks:








Joey made a new friend:



And another friend of the four-legged variety:




Jenna and her mom danced to the pirate music while her brothers rode the water ride:






Then the water ride got stuck:




Nonnie waited patiently, even after hearing the pirate song 8736 times:




After the water ride, Jack and Joey squirted other kids on the pirate ride:





They then took on Darth Vader:



We spent Thanksgiving recovering from all the excitement. And then they left on Friday.

The next morning, when I went in to get Charlie from his crib, he looked around my shoulder, looking for all the cool people who were here just the day before. We went downstairs and he ran into every room, searching for those fun people to play with. It made me think it may be time to get him a sibling.

Or put him into preschool.

I hope everyone had as much fun as we did showing them all San Diego has to offer! Thanks, Mom, Anne, and Mike - for dragging your family 3ooo miles to see us! Don't worry - next time, we'll come to you!